It sometimes happens that a composer will not be recognized for how great his or her music was until after their death. This was the case with the Russian Modest Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky had many friends among other composers, especially Nikolai Rismky-Korsikov, who was his roommate for a while; but he was completely unable to find an audience for his music during his lifetime.

 

After his death, Mussorgsky’s music slowly came to be heard around Europe, then around the world - mostly because his composer friends continued to promote it after he no longer could. The way Mussorgsky used harmony was very innovative, and he came to be very much admired by other musicians.

 

Mussorgsky’s most famous piece is a suite called Pictures at an Exhibition, which he wrote after seeing a show of drawings and paintings made by a friend of his. Listening to the piece is like walking around the gallery in your mind, with each section of the suite describing a different picture. It was originally written as a piece for solo piano, but it was arranged for a symphony orchestra in 1922 by the composer Maurice Ravel, and that is the version that is most popular today.